A collection of essential initial configurations for IntelliJ IDEA to streamline your development workflow.

IntelliJ IDEA.md

🎨 IntelliJ IDEA – Initial Setup Guide

This guide outlines the essential configuration steps I follow immediately after installing IntelliJ IDEA. It’s designed to make your IDE consistent, efficient, and ready for development — whether you’re new to IntelliJ or setting it up on a new machine.

🧩 Initial Customization

Prerequisite: Start with a fresh IntelliJ IDEA installation or welcome screen

1. Go to Customization

• Theme: Select Sync with OS (recommended for system-wide theme consistency)
• Language: Keep English (default)
• Region: Set your geographical region (e.g., Africa)
• IDE Font: Set to 12 for optimal readability

2. Go to Plugins

• Click the ⚙️ Settings icon (top-right of the “Installed” tab)
• Choose Update Plugins Automatically from dropdown
• Go to Installed → Click Update All to update all available plugins
• Recommended optional plugins to install: Gemini Code Assist and GitHub Copilot

3. Go to Settings

• Click the ⚙️ Settings icon (bottom-left of window)
• Choose Manage Subscriptions... from dropdown
• Activate your account

🔁 Enable Backup and Sync

Important: Close all open projects before proceeding

1. Navigate to Customize → All Settings → Backup and Sync
2. Select Enable backup and sync
3. Click Apply → OK

Done! ✅

©️ Add a Copyright Profile

Important: Close all open projects before proceeding

1. Navigate to Customize → All Settings → Editor → Copyright → Copyright Profiles
2. On the right pane, click + → choose Local
3. Configure the profile:

• Name: BENJAH (or your preferred name)
• Copyright Text: Copy and paste the template below:

Wasula Benjamin, Copyright (c) $today.year
Contact : [email protected]

Project Name  : $project.name
File Name     : $file.fileName
Last Modified : $file.lastModified.format("yyyy-MM-dd, hh:mma")

4. On Regexp to detect copyright in comments, fill in: Wasula Benjamin, Copyright or what matches as per your profile
5. Click Apply to apply the profile then:
6. Go to Customize → All Settings → Editor → Copyright
7. Under Default project copyright, select BENJAH
8. Click Apply → OK

Done! ✅

🤖 Configure Model Context Protocol (MCP)

Important: Close all open projects before proceeding

1. Navigate to Customize → All Settings → Tools → AI Assistant → MCP
2. In popup window:

• Command: Select As JSON from dropdown
• JSON Configuration: Copy and paste the template below
• Replace ghp_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN with your actual GitHub Personal Access Token

{
 "mcpServers": {
   "github": {
     "command": "npx.cmd",
     "args": [
       "-y",
       "@modelcontextprotocol/server-github"
     ],
     "env": {
       "GITHUB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN": "ghp_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN"
     }
   }
 }
}

3. Click Apply → OK

Done! ✅

💡 Enable Local Full-Line Completions

Important: You must have a project open for this step.

1. Go to Settings → Editor → General → Inline Completion
2. Under Enable local Full Line Completions suggestions:

• Download all available models (automatic download will start when you exit settings)
• Click Apply → OK (automatic download will start when you exit settings)
• Wait for downloads to finish

3. After downloads, return to the same page, Settings → Editor → General → Inline Completion and:

• Enable all models
• Set Download models to Automatically

4. Click Apply → OK ✅ Done!

🚀 Quick Start Summary

By the end of this setup, you’ll have:

• A personalized IntelliJ environment
• Auto-updating and useful plugins
• An embedded authoring copyright
• MCP integration for AI-based context tools
• Local full-line completion models enabled

Your IDE is now configured for maximum productivity and personalization 🎯

Pro Tip: These settings sync across installations if you use JetBrains Account synchronization.

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Author: Wasula Benjamin
Role: UIUX Designer & Developer
Last Updated: 17TH NOVEMBER, 2025